It's always sad to say goodbye, and today we celebrated the departure of Ana Nunes, post-doc and crayfish researcher extrordinaire, who spent 2 years working in the lab.
Ana (pictured here with crayfish collaborator Tsungai) got engaged while in South Africa to Joe. They get married in Portugal later this month.
We really enjoyed having you with us, and look forward to continue working with you.
As we found quite a lot of Xenopus laevis when we trapped at Bordjiesdrif in February, I decided to go back and do some more trapping there and at Buffelsfontein Visitors Centre.
The water levels in the Cape of Good Hope continue to get lower, and I've never seen GEPs looking so empty. A night heron flew away both times we visited, suggesting that opportunistic predators are taking advantage of the animals concentrated in a small space.
It was good to find Xenopus gilli at Bordjiesdrif, but only a single female was caught.
Thanks to the SANParks interns who accompanied me. Thanks also to Marisa de Kock for continuing to support the work on Xenopus at the Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park.
Tim was intrigued to learn more about platanna hybridisation following the publication of Furman et al (2017) and the buzz around that. He called early on Saturday to chat about the conservation consequences of the most recent findings.
It was a great pleasure to give my perspective on frog conservation in the Western Cape to students and staff of the Centre for Statistics in Ecology, the Environment and Conservation (SEEC).
A great day of talks from the staff and students.
My own talk centered on only 6 of the growing number of Cape frogs:
It's been great having Jen Fill around as a post-doc (shared with Brian van Wilgen). We will all miss her vibrant and dynamic nature in the lab. Not to mention the stories of how to work the best fires...
Pictured above, Jen Fill with Dave and Corlia Richardson